November 17, 2011

What is evil? When Macbeth killed his king, it was not the killing of another human being that was his crime. It was upsetting the order of the day. The order of the day is a pyramid from God to King (Duncan) to Lords to serfs. By killing Duncan, Macbeth has introduced chaos into the world. Chaos is evil because it introduces an amoral world. Anything can happen. When King Lear attempts to decentralize his kingdom by parceling out his kingdom to his daughters, his folly introduces chaos to the kingdom. Beyond random acts of violence, this is the true evil in the world.

So far I am persuaded that Shakespeare and McLuhan agree on this point. Evil is chaos. Goodness is order. But was Hitler’s dream of a new German order good then? Once you get passed the messy parts. And didn’t Lenin and Stalin agree that there would have to be blood drawn before the new Communist order came to fruition? Doesn’t all change mean violence? Which usually mean a cycle of violence. And wasn’t the Christian ideal of ‘forgiveness’ a way out of this cycle? Or Gandhi’s appeal to non-violent protest? Or democracy?

Of course change does not appeal to the affluent. The privileged. The rich. Their resistance to change does create violent conflicts. Perhaps their resistance is sometimes justified. In America there is a fear of tyrany. You can hear it on a lot of talk shows. There is also a fear of the mob.

The rich are terrified of the mob. The poor of a tyrant. The middle class want everyone to relax.